


Use Water Only as a Last Resort

by 1nceGivenUp_NeverRegained, Ink_Dancer



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: I had an idea and Ink_Dancer helped me flesh it out, Other, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6212200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nceGivenUp_NeverRegained/pseuds/1nceGivenUp_NeverRegained, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Dancer/pseuds/Ink_Dancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did Ford know not to throw water on the Gremloblin? This is what I think happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Use Water Only as a Last Resort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ink_Dancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Dancer/gifts).



> Thanks to Ink_Dancer for fleshing this story out and helping to expand the idea. This is a combination of what we think may have happened.

 

The quiet rasping of a pen nib against paper was the only sound Ford could hear, the sight of black ink stark against off-white paper burned as an afterimage whenever he blinked.  _ One more equation ought to do it, one more rewrite and I’ll have the whole thing figured out _ …

The  _ clunk _ of a coffee mug being set down two inches from his hand startled him into dropping the pen. “Fidds, what the hell?” he groaned, reaching toward the coffee despite himself.

“Ya need it,” Fidds responded nonchalantly, swirling his own cup, which just held water. “What’re ya workin’ on now? Somethin’ important enough to miss…” He paused to check his watch. “Breakfast, lunch, an’ almost-dinner, all while havin’ like three hours of sleep, max.”

Ford just shrugged, already scribbling again. 

He expected the heavy sigh, but not the shriek that it turned into.

“What’s wron —” His words died as he looked up and saw an enormous green…thing breaking through the door. “Ah, shit, that wasn’t supposed to escape.” He tried to keep his movements controlled as he grabbed the journal and backed away.

“You caught that thing?” Fidds demanded, his voice climbing in pitch as he kept pace with Ford, his accent declining a little with panic. Both of them came to an abrupt, gasping halt as their backs hit the wall.

“We-ell —”

The creature turned its horrific face toward them and roared, interrupting his hedging excuses. Ford looked away from its enormous teeth and heroically dived behind the couch, dragging Fiddleford with him. “This is not a good place to hide,” Fidds mumbled, straightening his glasses to glare at Ford, still miraculously holding onto his glass of water.

“I was studying it,” Ford explained distractedly, peeking over the top of the couch. “I found it and tranquilized it, and it wasn’t sup _ posed _ to get out of its cage.”

“Well, that was a  _ great plan _ ,” Fiddleford snapped, sarcasm stretched a little thin.

Ford shrugged and made a noncommittal hand gesture, making Fidds roll his eyes. “He’s lost interest,” the six-fingered scientist announced softly. This was indeed correct, as the beast had become fascinated by Fiddleford’s singing fish, and both men watched in fascination as the creature poked the button that brought it to a noisy life. And when it stopped, the monster hit the button again. Then again. And again. And another time after that. And another time…

“Glad we have that now?” Fidds asked, his elbows on his knees as he leaned back-to the couch.

Ford just continued to hit himself in the forehead with the second journal. “I’m going insane,” he mumbled. “We have to figure out a way to subdue it, get it back in its cage.” 

“Subdue it?!” Fiddleford exclaimed, nearly spilling the glass of water that he was still holding, as if he’d forgotten it. “We should figure out a way to injure it, or-or drive it off!”

“I need to record more information about it!” Ford protested, lifting the journal as if in evidence. 

“I don’t care,  _ we _ need to  _ not die _ ,” Fidds snapped exasperatedly. 

They were interrupted by a loud roar behind them, and the men realized belatedly that the fish had stopped singing. There was a brief pause as they absorbed this fact, then both of them let loose rather undignified screeches and attempted to scramble away from the creature. Ford was on his feet and moving toward where he  _ might _ have a crossbow when another noise from the monster grabbed his attention, and his head involuntarily turned towards it.

His eyes met the creature’s glowing ones, and suddenly he was rigid, his mind catapulting through a strange haze of memories and nightmares, coagulating into one massive ball of fear. He saw Stan, mostly — visions of Stan leaving, of Stan’s heartbroken face, his limp body as blood spread underneath his head, the feeling of that five-fingered hand being savagely ripped out of his own.

A splash suddenly broke it, and his vision cleared again. For a second he was confused, seeing Fiddleford now empty-handed, in the tail-end of a throwing stance. Then he looked at the beast, which had a splatter pattern of water on its shoulders and a pile of shattered glass around its feet.

For a brief moment, everybody stayed completely still in a shocked silence. Ford struggled to control his ragged breathing, shoving the images from that…waking nightmare away.

Then the monster began to morph, growing larger and letting out a furious bellow. 

The two men screamed and took off running, busting the door open and racing into the woods. “Why the  _ fuck _ did you throw water at it?!” Ford shouted, ducking under a tree branch as the monster barrelled after them. 

“Well, sue me for not knowing water makes it angrier! You were obviously having problems, so I threw the thing I had in my hand!” Fidds yelled back. “So what now?!”

“How the  _ hell _ would I know?” Ford hollered, glancing over his shoulder to see the beast tearing the forest apart to follow them.

“Let’s head for the caves! The Manotaurs hate other creatures on their territory!” Fiddleford suggested, starting to wheeze as they started up a hill.

“They don’t exactly like us, either!” Ford retorted, wincing as he caught his foot on a root.

“Best option! They don’t want to kill us, they’ll just tell us to leave.” Accepting this rationale, Ford nodded and they peeled off to the trail to the Man Cave.

“Here’s hoping!” Ford gasped as they stopped behind a tree. They both shrank against the bark as the monster continued charging right past them, only relaxing when its footsteps faded. After a brief moment to catch their breath, they started back toward the Shack.

“So…no more using water as a weapon, even if it’s the nearest thing,” Fiddleford panted, collapsing on the couch. 

“Yeah, no.” Ford sat next to his friend, pulling his foot up into his lap to check his ankle, prodding at different muscle groups to test their limitations.

“You alright?” Fidds asked, looking up as Ford hissed at a particularly sore spot.

“I think I strained my ankle, no big deal.” Ford paused for a moment, hesitating, before asking, “When I was…having problems, as you put it, what did it look like?”

“You kinda — froze in place, going all rigid-like.” Fidds shrugged a little dismissively. “For a second, I looked at it too, you know. I know more or less what you were seeing. Waking nightmares…and all.”

Ford nodded, half-frowning. “Why did I lose it more than you? That’s basically every night for me.”

Fidds just shrugged again, sagging back into the couch. “Just the way we are,” he commented quietly, not acknowledging Ford’s admission of bad dreams. Finally, he broke the tense, introspective silence with a sigh. “I’m probably not sleeping tonight, want any coffee?”

The other man shook his head wearily. “I’m alright, thanks. We both know what I’m like with no sleep.” They both chuckled, and Fidds moved off toward the kitchen. 

As soon as he was out of the room, Ford slumped against the couch and closed his eyes. The images resurged: Stan driving away; Ford accusing Stan of sabotaging his future and his dream college, and Stan’s face as Ford broke his heart; Stan’s broken and bleeding body. The images that haunted him at night stared at him from the back of his eyelids, accusing him and condemning him.

The creature had showed him what he saw nightly, whenever he closed his eyes, dragging it out into the light of day and torturing him anew.

Fiddleford came back into the room with a mug and frowned at Ford’s closed eyes and grim expression. 

“Whatever it showed you, you’ll be alright.” Ford’s eyes snapped open at the other man’s voice, his mouth already spreading from its grimace into a knife-edge smile. “That’s just what I remember, it’s how I managed to snap out of it enough to do something,” Fidds continued.

“It’s things that have already happened, not things I can avoid or fix or explain away,” Ford explained, closing his eyes again. “I messed up my relationship with my brother…ruined everything we had, and he doesn’t want to fix it.”

“I’m sure if you two sat down and talked it through and listened to each other, you could fix it. If he’s anything like you, he wants to go back to where you were, he just doesn’t know how to deal with either his emotions or yours.”

Ford frowned. “Are you saying I don’t know how to deal with emotions?”

Fiddleford muffled a chuckle. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The few times we’ve argued it took you ages to try to apologize.” 

“Yeah, I guess it did,” Ford said musingly, nodding. He paused. “Thanks, Fidds, I appreciate it.”

Fiddleford just smiled. He put his coffee down on the end table and opened a book, not commenting when Ford absently took a sip, his mind already far away as he opened the journal and started sketching the creature they’d fought and jotting down collected information. 


End file.
